Abstrak
<em>The Minangkabau people who are rich with their natural potentials in ulayat land, common ownership land. Unfortunately, ulayat land is not optimized maximally. As a result, it does not have an impact on the improvement of living standards of the community. In fact, young people in Minangkabau wander in order to improve their economy. Thus, there are no human resources who can manage the ulayat land can to make it an optimal source of income. This paper is a literature study of the thought of Mochtar Naim, which is expressed in a descriptive qualitative, with the method of deductive-inductive analysis. Therefore, author describes about merantau (wandering to make life), why the people merantau, philosophy and customs of merantau, and ulayat land as a source of livelihood of Minangkabau indigenous people. The result of unmanaged ulayat </em>